Egypt’s first democratically elected president has been jailed since being deposed in 2013 by his defense minister Abdel Fatah el Sisi who is now the country’s president.

Egyptian authorities have declared a state of emergency in Mohamed Moursi’s birthplace El Adwah where he will be buried today according to Muslim practice.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Qatar’sEmir Sheikh Tamin Bin Hammad Al Thani have both referred to Moursi as a martyr.

Members of the now outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, that he led to victory in 2012 elections, describe his death a murder, saying he was denied medical treatment in prison for diabetes and high blood pressure.

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The Egyptian general-turned-president is making his first visit to the White House from which he was effectively locked out by the Obama administration.

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Donald Trump and Abdel Fattah El Sisi met on the fringes of the United Nations General Assembly in New York last year and got on like a house on fire.

El Sisi will be disappointed if he  expects to leave Washington with everything on his wish list.

This includes more military aid, a US declaration that the Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organisation and a restoration of the strategic relationship Egypt once enjoyed with America.

Donald Trump may sound friendlier towards Egypt than Barak Obama.

But will his actions match his words?

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Their sentences, like all capital punishment determinations, are subject to review by the Grand Mufi, Egypt’s top Sunni Muslim authority.

The sit-ins that followed Egypt’s military coup in mid-2013 turned violent when they broke up and demonstrators attacked police stations, churches and government buildings.

The court has sentenced 14 people to death for this. Those condemned include Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie.

He’s facing a number of trials for the post-coup violence that killed dozens and wounded hundreds.

Indeed he’s been sentenced to death before but this has been commuted to life imprisonment.

El Sisi, who won election as Egypt’s sixth president has banned the Muslim Brotherhood.

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A spokesman for the television networs this should be day of justice prevailing that will see Baher Mohamed and Mohamed Fahmy freed after spending 407 days in prison. 

The Egyptian authorities have already freed and deported Australian journalist Peter Greste.

He was the third accused in the original trial that’s been overturned.

An Al Jazeera spokesman says the entire world knows all three are innocent and were only doing their jobs as journalists.

They were covering the aftermath of the army’s removal of Mohamed Morsi from the presidency in July 2013.

Western governments, human rights organisations and media freedom groups have all called for the journalists’ release.

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This from Canadian officials waiting to take him to the country where he has joint citizenship.

Mohammed Fahmy will be deported from Egypt like his Australian colleague Peter Greste.

The authorities have opted to boot them out rather than send for them retrial for spreading lies and supporting a banned organisation.

It remains to be seen what will be done with Egyptian journalist Baher Mohammed who was jailed with them 400 days ago.

All three insist they were just doing their jobs.

Fahmy’s family say surrendering his Egyptian citizenship was a tough decision for a man from a family with a strong military background.

But this is an absolute condition of his release.

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The three, who work for the Al-Jazeera English network, insist they were merely doing their job.

It’s a year Australian Peter Greste and Egyptians Mohammed Fahmy and Baher Mohammed were arrested in a case that has sent shock waves through the media in Egypt.

They were convicted of helping the Muslim Brotherhood, which won the 2012 election in Egypt overturned by a military coup.

The government’s since branded the brotherhood a terrorist organisation.

Journalists, and human rights rights groups called the trial a sham.

Egypt’s Court of Cassation begins hearing their appeal on Thursday.

Greste’s mother Lois says it’s a very anxious time.

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